East No. 2 | Full List
No. 1: Cleveland Cavaliers
Last Season: 53-29
2nd place in East; Lost 4-2 to Golden State in the Finals
Everything involving LeBron James becomes branded, so it's fair to wonder how his Miami years will be remembered from a Cleveland perspective. The Hibernation? The Gestation? However the in-between years come to be identified, the first season of The Return will be remembered as the one where James pushed the Cavaliers to the precipice of the franchise's first championship. And in the end, he did it largely on his own, just as he was forced to do so often during his first stint in Cleveland. This time was different, though, as the 2014-15 Cavs were more a victim of rotten injury luck than limited roster design. Because of that, Cleveland enters the 2015-16 season poised for its greatest campaign ever -- if the injury luck begins to straighten out.
When James averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game during Cleveland's Finals loss to Golden State, he showed us the limits of how far a single player can carry a team. With Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love out, James morphed into a frightening combination of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Karl Malone, but the Cavs came up two games short. It was exhausting just to watch. The residuals of that grueling loss are everywhere; no team enters the new season with as many injury-related question marks.
In fact, every single member of the projected starting lineup is dealing with some kind of significant malady. That includes James, who sat during the preseason with ongoing back trouble that has made him questionable for Cleveland's opener. James is a player with mileage. He's now played 43,330 career minutes between the regular season and the playoffs. If you extrapolate from his distance numbers generated by SportVU last season, you can estimate he's now covered about 2,570 miles over his career to date. Mileage. Serious mileage.
Injuries aside, when Cleveland finally settled the summerlong negotiation with restricted free agent Tristan Thompson, the Cavs found themselves with a depth chart two-deep with legitimate NBA rotation players. Beyond that, there is some deep depth, featuring players who can play a very real role. There seems to be little doubt that if Cleveland gets its pieces in place, the Cavs are the heavy favorites to repeat in the East. Most oddsmakers see them as the overall favorite in the NBA.
But the questions remain: Will the Cavs get their pieces in place? If so, how quickly does it need to happen? We're months away from having definitive answers to these questions. As much as any team in professional sports, the Cavaliers' season will be judged by their final game, not their first.
After James reunited with the Cavaliers, Cleveland quickly switched gears from the gradual bottom-up design that had just started to show results. Out were back-to-back top overall picks Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Bennett, in was All-Star forward Love. The bench was stocked with veteran floor spacers like Mike Miller and James Jones. Just like that, new coach David Blatt found himself with a roster that was projected to win 55 to 60 games.
Things didn't go well at first. James dealt with his back and a balky knee. Love struggled to acclimate himself to a complementary role. Irving grasped to find the right blend of the alpha player he'd been and the beta player everyone is forced to be next to James. Cleveland hovered around .500 for most of the first half and stood just 19-20 on Jan. 13. The Cavs ranked 11th on offense, a major letdown for an attack with historically high expectations. Yet the news was even scarier on the defensive end, where only four teams ranked lower.
The stage for Cleveland's turnaround had been set about a week before the season's nadir, during a nine-game stretch James missed with injury. Cavs GM David Griffin unloaded marginalized volume scorer Dion Waiters and spare parts in a three-team deal that brought wings Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith from New York. A couple of days later, Griffin turned a package of draft picks into Denver center Timofey Mozgov. James joined his new teammates on Jan. 13, a loss to the Suns. Then the new era took off.
From that point on, Cleveland went 34-9. The offense was the league's best during that span and the defense improved to 13th. The Cavs entered the playoffs looking like the team everyone thought they'd be. But that team began to disintegrate, beginning with the season-ending shoulder injury Love suffered at the end of Round 1. Even with Irving's knee-addled status an on-again, off-again proposition, the Cavs still managed to dispatch Chicago and Atlanta to reach the Finals.
Irving finally went down for good late in Game 1 of the Finals with a dislodged kneecap. Behind James and supporting players like Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova, the Cavs gave the mighty Warriors a good run, and James gave us a performance for the ages. Still, when the dust settled, Cleveland's 45th season ended like all the others -- without a title.
The Cavs' summer was comprised of bringing back the seven rotation free agents from last year's Finals, while sprinkling in a couple of missing-piece veterans with enough utility to help Cleveland better navigate another spate of injuries -- and to avoid those maladies in the first place by allowing Blatt to better manage minutes during the regular season. The process was lengthy and expensive. Thompson didn't sign his deal until October, which gave the media plenty to discuss beyond the Cavs' injury woes.
The first year of Thompson's five-year, $82 million deal pushes Cleveland's projected payroll to $170 million in combined salary and luxury taxes. That figure could go even higher. Griffin dealt veterans Miller and Brendan Haywood for a couple of future second-rounders and opened up a pair of trade exceptions. The one for Haywood is worth $10.5 million. If Cleveland cashes in that exception during the season, the Cavs would become a $200 million team. Clearly, owner Dan Gilbert is all-in with this roster, but if you spend that much, a championship is the only acceptable outcome. It's doubtful that pressure is going to faze James.
With free agents Love, Smith, Shumpert, Thompson, James and Dellavedova back in the fold, the new faces are point guard Mo Williams and forward Richard Jefferson. They have a combined 26 years of NBA experience. Williams will eventually provide a needed scoring touch off the bench to complement the explosive but always streaky Smith. At first, though, Williams will fill Irving's void as the franchise point guard works his way back from a knee injury. Jefferson will provide shooting and some residual athleticism as an improved backup for James, who is likely to see a decline in minutes. Meanwhile, the Cavs imported longtime draft-and-stash asset Sasha Kaun to serve as the third-string center and a hedge against lingering injury problems for Mozgov and/or Anderson Varejao.
The way the Cavaliers finished the 2014-15 season -- losing Games 4 through 6 of the Finals after holding a 2-1 lead over the Golden State Warriors -- created a dichotomy of opinion among the team's brain trust as it entered the offseason. Were the Cavs simply unlucky after suffering postseason injuries to two of their biggest stars in Irving and Love? Or was the Finals loss, coupled with James turning another year older and the league loading up around them, a sign that an overhaul was in order? Ultimately, Cleveland's title run coming up just short inspired confidence in the Cavs to keep their team intact as much as possible.
"More than anything else, we wanted to bring the team back together that had gone 33-3 in their last 36 games healthy," Griffin said. "We were really torn on whether or not we were good enough or not good enough, but because the season ended like it did, we really wanted another opportunity to see if what we had was the right mix. So, getting the group together sort of largely as a whole and then adding to it -- augmenting the group we had -- was our plan. And we're really grateful we've been able to do that to this point."
Cleveland was able to re-up every major contributor from last year's team to hit free agency, while also adding Williams, Jefferson and Kaun to the mix. It was a hectic offseason, but when the dust settled, the Cavs believed they put themselves in position to compete for a title once again.
"We've known for more than a year this is what it was going to look like," Griffin said. "So, we were really fortunate to be able to execute what we executed." -- Dave McMenamin
Projected Real Plus-Minus for starters
Kyrie Irving, PG: +1.7
J.R. Smith, SG: +1.0
LeBron James, SF: +9.7
Kevin Love, PF: +3.8
Timofey Mozgov, PF: +1.9
Scouting reports on every player on the Cavaliers
Using shot data from 2014-15 and projected starters, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry ranks each team's offensive efficiency based on square footage.
LeBron, generally impossible to stop, was second in field goal percentage (55.1) and points per game (7.6) on drives last season among players with 500 such attempts.
Irving is lethal from the top of the key (45.9 percent), but until he returns, the Cavs will need Love, who drops 41 percent from the left wing.
All about the space: 8th (442 sq. ft. of above-average offense)
To identify players who stretch offenses the most, ESPN Stats & Information created the Kyle Korver effect -- a metric on a 1-100 scale, factoring in 3-point percentage, 3-point attempt rate (percentage of total shots that come from 3-point range) and influence on teammate FG percentage.
Korver effect: J.R. Smith (93.5) is one of nine Cavs who project to shoot above NBA average from 3-point range.
How will all this come together? The injury situation hovers over everything and makes it likely the Cavs will enjoy a similar trajectory to last season. Shumpert's wrist injury could keep him out until late December or longer. Irving's timetable has been a carefully guarded secret, with January as the outer edge of estimates that have been floated in the media. Love made it into a couple of preseason games, but James wasn't there to join him after having another injection for his back. Mozgov is working back from his own knee trouble, Varejao is coming off an Achilles injury, and it might take Thompson time to work back into game shape. Even Kaun was battling a back issue toward the end of preseason.
This is going to take some time to crystallize. When Blatt finally gets all of his pieces, James' public comments suggest he's going to be even more of a facilitator, with Love as a likely beneficiary. The LeBron-or-nothing offense that emerged in the Finals is pretty much the antithesis of the Princeton offense background from which Blatt emerged, and we should expect to see an emphasis on ball movement and scoring balance. We know James can take over at any time. So can Irving. Still, you get the feeling Love is the bellwether player for how far this team can go. If we are getting the best version of Love, this will be a team functioning in a cohesive manner. But continuity is huge. Think back to how much more unified the Heat were in James' second Miami season as opposed to his first.
The healthy version of this Cleveland roster is loaded. While we might not see that roster for a while, the Cavs have plenty of buffer in the East and proved last season they don't need the No. 1 seed to reach the Finals. If Blatt can manage the minutes to get everyone in peak form next May and June, while at the same time giving his key lineups enough time together to coalesce, the Cavaliers have to be considered the odds-on favorite to win the next NBA title. But when it comes to all these injuries, the Cavs will need lady luck to play her part.